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Gotta love news programmes - drag out "experts" to fluff out their "breaking news" pieces.
Reports of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 shot down over Eastern Ukraine - get some retired army bod to speak about how he thinks it was 'probably' done by trigger happy Ukrainian air defence....

Very sad news. RIP all passengers & crew. Apparently MH17 was flying c. 32,000ft so out of range of rebel MANPADs. This implies that if it was shot down by a SAM, a sophisticated, radar-guided SAM system.
There have been unconfirmed reports that the Russians had recently equipped thier proxies in Eastern Ukraine with Sa-11 Buk SAMs, capable of this atrocity.

I am willing to bet that the black boxes have disappeared and won't be found. Considering the height the Malaysian plane was flying at, 33k foot, it must have been shot down by some serious piece of military hardware. A small MANPAD won't reach high enough. The black market won't provide that stuff, so Russia probably has some explaining to do.

I would not mind if our government sent a few marines there to drag Strelkov's **** to the international tribunal in The Hague.

BTW, be cautious looking for images of the crash. There are plenty of them, and they are not shy showing bodies. On Russian tv they are even showing Dutch and Malay passports, opening the photo page of several of them.

I am willing to bet that the black boxes have disappeared and won't be found. Considering the height the Malaysian plane was flying at, 33k foot, it must have been shot down by some serious piece of military hardware. A small MANPAD won't reach high enough. The black market won't provide that stuff, so Russia probably has some explaining to do.

I would not mind if our government sent a few marines there to drag Strelkov's **** to the international tribunal in The Hague.

BTW, be cautious looking for images of the crash. There are plenty of them, and they are not shy showing bodies. On Russian tv they are even showing Dutch and Malay passports, opening the photo page of several of them.

YEah yeah sure. Blame Strelkov, not the people bombing him. Typical kneejerk crap all over the web.

We all know if this fell in Ukranian territory the investigation would be 100% bias proof.

Yes, whoever did it should have been aware that civilian air traffic was overflying that airspace. A good friend of mine was shot down over Ethiopia in a similar fashion. No attempt to contact the aircraft to confirm the identity and intention. I personally have been fired on indiscriminately by trigger happy rebels while operating an airliner at a civilian airport.

The head of the Russian Air Traffic Controllers' Union, Sergei Kovalyov, told BBC Russian that the airspace over eastern Ukraine had remained open during the conflict because the planes previously shot down had tended to be helicopters or low-flying fast jets.

According to our information, the aircraft was flying at Flight Level 330 (approximately 10,000 metres/33,000 feet) when it disappeared from the radar. This route had been closed by the Ukrainian authorities from ground to flight level 320 but was open at the level at which the aircraft was flying.

Since the crash, the Ukrainian authorities have informed EUROCONTROL of the closure of routes from the ground to unlimited in Eastern Ukraine (Dnipropetrovsk Flight Information Region). All flight plans that are filed using these routes are now being rejected by EUROCONTROL. The routes will remain closed until further notice.

A terrible incident. I wasn't aware of the status of the airspace or that commercial operators were still flying through there. I hope the facts can be brought to the table.

Not to belittle what has happened... but approximately the same number of people have been killed in Gaza in the last 10 days.

Or, over 100,000 have died in Syria.

Not trying to belittle them but...the people in Gaza and Syria are in internationally recognised conflict zones: you might not be happy about it but if you are there you know there is an element of danger. The people on this airliner, on the other hand, were probably unaware that they were flying over a war zone - that is a concern for the authorities to answer to - and the (hopefully) last thing on their minds was that they could be the target for trigger-happy bozo with a SAM system at his disposal.

On Jul 18th 2014 Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK), responsible for investigation of aviation accidents, announced that they believe in the circumstances of the crash of MH-17 the investigation should be carried out under the supervision of the ICAO. The blackboxes will therefore be handed over to the ICAO for investigation.